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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 21861
Released: September 28, 1999 |
| Our Price: $3.61 |
| Used Price: $1.85 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Closed-captioned Color DTS Surround Sound DVD Full Screen NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
Masters of horror Stephen King (The Shining) and George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead) have created a "gripping, creepy, frightening" (L.A. Reader) film that "thrills, shocks and works us over" (Los Angeles Times)! Featuring an "intelligent screenplay and first-rate cast" (The New York Times), including OscarÂ(r) winner* Timothy Hutton, The DarkHalf will keep you captivated to the chilling end. Horror writer Thad Beaumont (Hutton) hopes to distance himself from his murder novels and from George Stark, the name he has used to anonymously author them. To achieve this, he cooks up a murder of his own: a publicity stunt that should lay Stark to rest forever. But when the people around him are found gruesomely slainand his own fingerprints dot the crime scenesBeaumont is dumbfounded until he learns that Stark has taken on a life of his own and begun a gruesome quest for vengeance! *1980: Supporting Actor, Ordinary People
Description of The Dark Half:
Although it lacks the creepy subtleties of Stephen King's celebrated novel, George Romero's underrated adaptation of The Dark Half ranks among the best films based on King's fiction, with Romero taking care to honor King's central theme while serving up some gruesome gore in the film's much-criticized finale. Inspired by King's own admission that he wrote several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Dark Half explores the duality of a writer's impulse, ranging from literary respectability to the viscerally cathartic thrills of exploitative pulp fiction.
Author and teacher Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) finds himself torn between those extremes when he "kills" his profitable, pseudonymous alter ego George Stark (the bestselling "dark half" to Thad's light), who then assumes an evil, autonomous form (again played by Hutton) to lethally defend his role in Thad's creative endeavors. Forced to wrestle with this evil manifestation of his own unformed twin, Thad must fight to protect his wife (Amy Madigan), their twin babies, and his own survival as an artist. Romero skillfully develops the twin/duality theme to explore the writer's dilemma, and Hutton is outstanding in his dual roles, playing Stark (in subtly fiendish makeup) as a redneck rebel with a knack for slashing throats. Julie Harris adds class in a supporting role, and horror fans will relish Romero's climactic showdown, in which swarms of sparrows seal Stark's fate. It favors a pulp sensibility with clunky exposition to explain Stark's existence, but The Dark Half is a laudable effort from everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon
The Dark Half Reviews:
Entertaining....but Missing Something 
2009-10-12 - If you are a fan of Stephen King and George Romero, you had to have high expectations for "The Dark Half". When the two horror icons collaborated previously we got the now classic "Creepshow". And where "Creepshow" was a fun horror film focusing on laughs as well as chills, "The Dark Half" is a much more intense tale one perfectly suited for Romero's talents.
Written in reaction to being outed as Richard Bachman, Stephen King created one bad dude in George Stark. Stark is the antagonist in "The Dark Half" and writer of gritty, bloody best selling crime novels. He is the alter ego to family man Thad Beaumont, author and scholarly english professor. When Beaumont is outed as the writer of the Stark novels featuring a ruthless killer known as "The Machine", Beaumont decides the best way to handle a potential blackmailer is to beat him to the punch by revealing himself to the press as the author George Stark, effectively killing Stark off. Soon the blood begins to flow, and the sparrows begin to fly as Stark doesn't like being "killed" off.
Timothy Hutton does a great job playing both Beaumont and Stark. It's hard to believe that it's the same actor in both roles! Michael Rooker is still the best film version of Castle Rock's sheriff Alan Pangborn as well. And while there are some chills here and there, for some reason "The Dark Half" doesn't live up to its horror pedigree. At times I found the film dragged, the pacing seemed off, and scenes that were supposed to provide suspense seemed tedious instead.
Still, this is a decent King adaptation, much better than quite a few filmed versions of his work, but it's not one of the best either. Worth a rental, but not a purchase.
gift review 
2009-01-03 - i bought this gift for a family member. they loved it. very good delivery times on all of my amazon.com orders. that is why i order about 99 percent of my movies from them. cannot find any deals that beat them. my whole family orders from them. all are pleased so far with everything and the delivery time. keep up the good work and we will be very loyal customers.
A movie based on a book by Steven King... there's something new.
2008-09-01 - This movie really only has one main cast member. He is Timothy Hutton. He has been in many films. A couple you may remember are Taps 1981 and French Kiss 1995. He is also in several films coming up 2008-09. Two are completed and five are still being produced. He actually plays two roles in the film. But I don't want to get ahead of myself, nor do I want to give away to much. Below I will tell you a little about the movie without ruining it for everyone.
This movie has a real mid - late 80's/ early 90s feel to it. It is set in Main. This only adds to the small town spooky feel. The movie is about a man who as a young boy likes to write. One day he is heading out to the bus when he passes out and is having seizures on the ground. Turns out he has something wrong in his brain. The doctors say it is something that must be removed. While doing this they find something that shocks them all. I don't want to ruin it so I will not say what. So they remove it and it says like 18 years later.
The man has become a writer. He made up a name and face for his writing though. He writes dirty stuff and does not want anyone to know. A man finds out who he is and threatens to let every know unless he gives him money. He tells him that he will call and let him know how much. The writer decides to come out and tell everyone thus allowing him to feel free and not have to pay. Well murders start to happen and the mans friend (who is the sheriff) thinks he has something to do with it. Also, his prints were found on stuff at the crime scene. I will not say anymore because I do not want to give anything away. Trust me though.... It gets weird.
The only problem I had with this movie was it kind of dragged on. It was about 2 hours. SO much could have been taken out to make it like an hour and forty minutes. You find out what is happening pretty fast and from then on it's just repeat, repeat, repeat. It will get old rather quickly. It is a neat movie that has some strange horror/sci-fi feel to it. I was at the movie store and I saw it sitting there. I had never seen it before so I decided to rent. I would say this was definitely more a rental than a buy. Go read the book if you want instead of seeing the movie first. Then watch the film and see what is different. I will probably never watch this again though. It just kind of hung there. Kind of telling you what would happen and kind of not. I guess it's like most books made into movie. There always just ok. Except Harry Potter. All though I finished the last book the day before I saw the movie and the movie was SO much worse than the book. It left out a lot of things that at the time I was reading seemed important. Not sure if this film did that or not but see the movie as well as read the book and you can decide.
MAINELY OUTSTANDING
2007-11-26 - Ever wonder what Alfred Hitchcock would have done with material written by Stephen King? "Dark Half" may be the closest we'll ever come to finding out. But,whereas in Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963) we see nature on the rampage with Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time,in "Dark Half " nature is employed as a useful vehicle, gorging Timothy Hutton's hidden half and finallly returning it to Satan,from whence the original body tissue came. Director Romero does an excellent job of reproducing Hutton's hidden "twin" who sprang to life as an alias,protecting a young college professor's true identity. But,devilry often seems to feed upon itself, especially here when Hutton goes on writing binges which satiate his dark side on paper, but also fuel the flames of his "twin". The repellent violence does become a bit much at times, and this is certainly no film for youngsters.But,"Dark Half" is, and will always be a first rate horror movie.
timothy hutton should be ashamed of himself 
2007-06-22 - why are most stephen king novels that are mildly brilliant all turn out to be absolute decrepid gutter ca-ca? (tommyknockers, storm of century, Needful Things) I mean Stand by Me, classic, Shawshank classic, this is just so awful, and its amazing the fan base George A. Romero has, he has got to be the biggest joke in the industry, save for some really visually impressive scenes in Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead was just an absolute B Movie joke.
To think this movie has a fan base, reminds me totally why I live alone, and choose my friends wisely. The film has no depth, no character interpersonal qualms, lacks emotion and undearing understanding of consequence, and utterly sinks beneath the spectrum of talent, and Hutton should cringe whenever he is flipping through the channels, and happens to see this on TBS.
A 1.5 for some sophmoric cinematic magic.
